chapstick

yin & yang of woolly caterpillars

found under an oak log

Another beautiful day. Bringing wood in to dry near the wood stove. Wood rack and other implements down from the attic. Season of Purell and chapstick. Flu shots available at drugstores and supermarkets.

season of frost

Another beautiful day. Finished stacking the wood pile on Sunday. When you get to the final few pieces, the mice that have been living there scurry away. There are seasonal signs of the times which are small but momentous. The other day there was frost on the windshield. Had to haul the ice scraper out of the trunk of the car, and there was the sound of scraping the windshield for the first time in a long time.

tamaracks

Clear. We have had a long stretch of unusually good weather for this time of year. Corn fields have been reduced to stubble, and with the falling of the leaves, vistas have opened up in a way we haven't seen since early in the spring. The tamaracks are turning. They are one of the last to go. They resemble the remains in the asparagus patch both in shape and in color. Allyn was in Ohio for the weekend, and I did my daily meditation in front of the wood stove on cold November mornings.

miracles

I know nothing else but miracles...
To me every hour of the light and dark is
a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth
is spread with miracles,
Every foot of the interior swarms with miracles.
Walt Whitman
Zen page a day calendar

white tailed deer

Clear. I belong to a sitting group that convenes three mornings a week in Rutland. I drive by this field on Cold River Road on my way from the sittings to work. The field is full of goldenrod and is a beautiful gold/yellow in August & September. By October it has turned to brown. It looks to me like the coat of a white tailed deer as does much of the countryside now with the varying shades of brown on display.

flannel night gowns

Clear. Trick or treaters running the roads in West Rutland. Allyn is making her transition to colder weather. Winter clothes have been brought down from the attic. She has turned on the seat warmer in her Subaru. Flannel night gowns have replaced the evening wear of summer.
There are only two ways
to live your life. One is
as though nothing is a
miracle. The other is
as though everything
is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Zen page a day calendar

The last function of reason is to
recognize that there is an infinity
of things which surpass it.
Blaise Pascal
Zen page a day calendar